March 25. Balancing. Guarding. Dancing to the music and trying to perform the steps as best as they possibly could. Some can do even better, some could only do easier modifications.
For several of the clients, they didn't need any assistance. A few, on the other hand, required some amount of contact guarding. These basically describe what we observed in our group teaching activity for the adult neuro clients who attended the wellness class of CTS-AA.
We only had a night to prepare for this morning session and we were not entirely sure if we could pull it off nicely. Thanks to one of our groupmates who knows how to dance, we had something to teach them. We opted for dancing aside from us being given the task of leading the warm-up and cool-down because as we discussed with the interns, their goal was to up the heart rate to target their cardiorespiratory endurance. It consisted of what we mostly thought were easy steps, but for a few of those seemingly easy ones, we were proven wrong.
It could be that we overestimated their capabilities or maybe it's because the group was comprised of several different degrees of impairment, some of which are on totally opposite ends of the line. It could also be both. Nonetheless, more preparation could have helped us plan better. We could have thought of easier variations of the steps for the individuals with low-function. In spite of this, it made me happy to see that our clients were motivated and were really trying to do their best to follow. As pointed out by Ma'am Dana, we then learned that we should not forget that they have neurological deficits and we could not expect them to be able to easily follow the actions we teach. Sadly, we also overlooked giving the rationale and an appropriate amount of feedback. We felt like everything was so new and we could not gauge when it was appropriate to give these and how we can word it in a way that would not make the clients think, "Sino ba ito para utusan ako?" Now we know better and in the future, we know that it is very necessary no matter what.
I think the good thing about what we did was that we chose an activity the clients like which is dancing in this case. We heard directly from them that we did well. Some of them even asked for a copy of the music and dance steps. It wasn't bad after all and they enjoyed the activity, based on what we saw and heard from them after the session. We have to keep in mind that patient preference plays a big role in compliance so that in the future, we will always remember to take that into consideration. Getting a better picture of the clients will also help facilitate our activity decision-making.
I do not know how to describe the feeling of reaching out and teaching them; of listening to the stories of one of the clients; of being there to guard those with residual impairments that limit their capability to safely traverse even the most stable, uncluttered terrain. It made me feel happy, being given the chance to listen to a client. It gives a sense of purpose; a drive or some beautiful kind of motivation that makes you want keep on giving more of it. It makes you feel that even though there is nothing material you can give, you can at least give your attention, your empathy, and the kind of motivation that we can give as PTs. These people have stories to tell; stories that you can only understand if you are genuinely concerned to hear about it. They have lives they want to continue living outside the barriers that the impairments stroke left them with and it is our job to try and help them reach the best possible level of recovery they could.
In the end, we not only came to teach. We came out carrying lots of lessons that we can use in the future.
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